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wedding update thursday

A few Wedding Update Thursday posts back I promised to show you the favors I made for the wedding. I ended up hand making little felt stuffed heart pins. Like I said in that post, they take a long time to make. About half way through the process I got it down to about twenty minutes per heart, and had to make about seventy of them. So, if you attempt to make these, allot yourself about a month at least. That’s how long it took me.

Here’s the tutorial 🙂

Materials:

10 sheets of colored felt (for 60 hearts) – you get six hearts per sheet, so adjust accordingly if you are making more. Also, I ended up wasting a lot of felt, so if you can get more hearts from each sheet, then go for it.

pins

scissors

embroidery thread – similar or contrasting colors, depending on the look you’re going for

Pin backs

a needle

a bag of polyester fiberfill stuffing

Step One:

Fold your felt rectangles into thirds, and cut. You should end up with three sheets from every one original sheet of felt.

Step two:

Fold one piece of felt in half, and place three pins evenly, so you end up with four mostly equal divisions on the felt

Step three:

Free cut two (and only two) heart halves from the folded felt. Unfold and you get hearts!

Step four:

Unpin your felt rectangle, and pin the two hearts you just cut to the remaining uncut portion of your felt.

Step five:

Cut around the hearts you’ve pinned, paying careful attention to staying close to the edge. You are attempting to make an exact twin of the hearts you just cut.

Step six:

Having separated two felt heart pieces, sew the pin backs to the back of one of the felt hearts.

Step Seven:

Sew a small square of felt over the pin back, just to make it look prettier.

Step Eight:

Reassemble the two hearts so they align together again (it may help to pin them back together). Sew the two heart pieces together, leaving enough open space at the top to stuff the heart. Don’t worry. Your stitches don’t have to look perfect, it’s more fun if they aren’t!

Here we are back in San Francisco. Thanks for putting up with the little blog hiatus, we were much busier then we thought up in Portland! But, if you feel like sitting through it, here is the run down of our week in Portland. You may want to take it in two sittings, it’s a long post.

It all started on Wednesday, June 20th when we packed up the car, made sure all the VII’s (Very Important Items, like my dress and our rings) had been packed, made our customary McDonald’s road trip breakfast stop (don’t judge us), and hit the road for the 642 mile drive to Portland. It was a pretty mundane drive until we got up around Shasta. That’s where we both did double takes on the freeway because we wanted to make sure that this is really what we were seeing:

It’s not every day that you see a clown driving a fire truck down the freeway.

Also, here’s a pic of Shasta.

We had misjudged the amount of time it would take to get to Portland. For some reason we thought we wouldn’t get there until late at night. Perhaps that’s because the last time we drove up we left SF much later in the day. But regardless, we arrived much ahead of schedule around 6pm.

What’s the first thing we did after unloading the car and checking in to the hotel? We ran out for SUSHI. I mean, seriously, sushi is super expensive in San Francisco, when compared to Portland. So we ate our fill at Sushi Land in the Pearl, and then topped it off with cupcakes from Cupcake Jones.

We had planned to get all of our meetings and errands out of the way on Thursday, June 21st, so that day started bright and early at 9:00 when we got our marriage license! I expected this to be much more involved. But apparently all you need to know to get married in Oregon is your social security number, and where/when your parents were born. The only other surprise to me was that you have to know what name you intend to take once married. I honestly hadn’t really thought about it! Whoops! So, I had to make a clutch decision and decided to go with the hyphenate. So at this point I’m officially Nicole Henry-Cook!

We were done with that stop much ahead of schedule, so on our way over to South West Portland we got to stop at Marco’s Cafe for breakfast in Multnomah Village (where I grew up), and then I got to take Tim by Thinker Toys, which was my first real job (and one that I worked at on and off for five years). Then we headed over to Maplewood Elementry School so Tim could see where I went to school, and the school was open! We took a small (literally) tour down memory lane, looked inside my old fourth grade classroom, marveled at how small everything was, and proved to Tim that Jimmy and I had actually gone there. Our family name is still painted on a leaf on the wall in the hallway.

Then it was off to Maplewood Coffee and Tea for our final meeting with our Photographer. Then it was off to our last meeting of the day to meet with our day of wedding planners to go over the final details for the wedding. It was a LONG day.

Friday, June 22nd was another busy day. I had my hair and makeup trial run with Face Body Beauty just in time for us to run off to our bachelor and bachelorette parties! Let me just say that the five lovely ladies, Katie, Kirsten, Crystal, Heather, and Sara that partied it up sure know how to have a good time 🙂 And, from what I hear, Tim had a great time too out with the guys.

Saturday, June 23rd was pretty laid back. We didn’t have anything specific planned. Mostly just hung around The Kennedy School with the handful of Tim’s family that were already in town, and picked up the rest of Tim’s family from the airport when they arrived.

Sunday, June 24th: WEDDING DAY, also known as the fastest day ever. Florist dropping off all the flowers, hair and makeup for myself, my maid of honor Katie, my mom, and my soon to be mother in law, getting into the dress, formal photos, THE WEDDING, the reception, and the after party.

Here’s a pic of my bouquet. I was sooo impressed by our florist. We planned the look over the phone, and she nailed the look I wanted exactly.

Here’s me, Katie and my mom getting all prettied up.

Note the funny cat cartoons on the wall. All of the McMenamin’s Kennedy School rooms are themed and we ended up in the kitten’s who have lost their mittens room. I thought this was strangely fitting, expecially given Oliver’s plight with his tail recently, lol.

Once we were all made up, I managed to get myself into my dress then it was off to formal photos! I don’t have any of those to post yet, that weren’t already included in the last post, because formal photos won’t be ready for another month. But here are some my favorites taken by our family that was included.

Then it was was time to pull the trigger. My brother walked me down the aisle, in the bright magenta tie that he complained about for a month prior and finally realized he actually liked, and my Uncle married us. I don’t think either Tim or I anticipated how great of a job my Uncle would do on the ceremony. And just like everyone warned me, I don’t actually remember a lot about the ceremony itself. Thankfully, my uncle gave us a written copy of the ceremony so we could remember down the road.

After that there was much eating, drinking, eating of pie, dancing, watching my little niece cut up the dance floor, bouquet tossing, garter tossing, and other merriment, as you would expect at a reception. Though, I will say that one of my favorite parts of the day, other then the obvious marrying of my awesome goofball husband, was getting everyone I know in the same room at the same time. Family and friends came from all over the place, New Mexico, California, Arkansas, Missouri, Seattle, Southern Oregon, Kansas. It was pretty cool to get married in front of all of our favorite people.

What else was pretty cool? The photo booth we rented.

Monday, June 24th to Wednesday, June 26th were relaxing. Filled with trips to the Rose Garden, the Oregon Zoo, the car wash (to wash the “Just Married” paint of the car…even though I wanted to keep it there), Powel’s, more Powels, a few of our favorite restaurants, and then a looooong drive back to San Francisco.

And now we’re back. It’s weird that we spent over a year planning the wedding and now Tim’s back at work, the cats are home from boarding, I’m back to cooking dinner (though now it’s with some neat-o new cooking gadgets), and the wedding’s all over. I know I’ve heard Tim say more than once this past week and a half that he “wishes it was still Wedding Day.” 🙂 Yah, I do to. But at least now we have the Honeymoon to look forward to!

——–

Stay tuned for one final Wedding Update Thursday post today (if you can handle three posts in one day), which will be all about one of my favorite places in Portland.

Want to see a few more pics? Here is a link to our photographer, Erin Grace Photography’s blog where she has posted a few other shots from the day. These are the only five pro shots i’ve seen from the wedding, and it’s such a tease! I want to see the rest, but they won’t be ready for another month. Must. Be. Patient. 🙂

It’s the official countdown! Ten days to go, and I’m happy to report that the list is getting very small!

The biggest thing we’ve accomplished this last week was one of the things we’ve flat out been avoiding for a long time. Picking wedding music. You wouldn’t think that this would take so long (or be so hard) but by the time we finally sat down to do it, it took us four hours! Part of what takes so long is actually listening to the song options. Figuring out if they are upbeat enough, or slow enough, or if they are just simply too long. The other part of the problem is finding a nice combination of our favorite genre’s of music and making that work with our guests favorites too (and the classics) without making it sound like a random disjointed mashup of Motown meets Garth Brooks. There’s picking the song I walk down the aisle to (because I hate the traditional Here Comes the Bride), there’s a first dance song, a bouquet tossing song, a garter tossing song, a cake (or in our case a pie) cutting song, a last dance song, and about a dozen others (some of which we simply decided not to do), not to mention the list of songs that we don’t want the DJ to play. At the end of the day I think we did a pretty good job , but you still may end up with “Sign, Sealed, Delivered (I’m Yours),” awkwardly followed by “I’ve Got Friends in Low Places.” Just deal with it. You’ll all be full of beer anyway, so it will likely seem like the most natural of song pairings 🙂

Next up, I went back for my final dress fitting and picked up my dress. And I’ll be damned if it didn’t fit just fine! Who knows what my problem was last time, because there was no problem getting into it yesterday. Yay!

Also, as I am a blogger, you can imagine the sheer volume of wedding blogs I’ve been reading over the past year. Well, I made a decision here with so little time to go. I’ve completely sworn off reading any more wedding blog posts or wedding magazines. No more random projects, no new DIY’s for me (sorry Martha Stewart), no etiquette suggestions, or tips on seating charts. Just gotta go with what I’ve got.

And other then sending final payments to a bunch of vendors, that’s pretty much what we did this last week. There will likely be one more Wedding Update Thursday post next week (from Portland, likely), before we get hitched. Stay tuned!

Hi again! So, I neglected my “Wedding Update Thursday” post yesterday (sorry Janean!) 😉 . Why? Well, we didn’t really do much wedding stuff last week. I ordered a few decor things for the ceremony, and we paid a bunch of people.

But, mostly I’ve just been stuck in wedding favor do-it-yourself HELL. Most of you who know me know that I get these grand creative ideas. I’m pretty good about creating a plan, buying the right materials (I know Michael’s like the back of my hand), and getting through most of the project, then inevitably I quit. So far the DIY list for the wedding has included the table numbers, the escort cards, the activity books for the kids (yes, we have activity books for the kids), and the wedding favors.

The problem with the decision to make your own wedding favors is that you can’t really quit, lol. It’s not like these favors are super involved, or even hard to make, it’s just that when you have to make seventy of them it gets super monotonous! And, I don’t do well with monotony. They take me about twenty minutes apiece, so I generally manage to get through about three of them before I get bored. And, so far I’ve only made 38 of them. That makes 32 still left to do! The only thing that kept me sane through the first 38 is the fact that I’ve been watching all eight Harry Potter movies, in order, while crafting (which also means I’ve been limited to crafting to the times when Tim’s not around, since he refuses to participate in my Harry Potter marathon). I’m down to the last two movies. That’s totally not gonna last me through the end of this project! I may have to move on to Lord of the Rings.

Don’t get me wrong, I really like how they’re coming out, and I don’t regret doing them. They just take so long! And I’m soooo impatient! Oh well. I have to average three per day over the next twelve days in order to get them all made in time for us to leave to drive to Portland. Wish me luck!

After the wedding, I’ll post a DIY post withe pictures and instructions should any of you be curious about what I actually made, and how to make them yourself.

Hi! We’ve gotten quite a bit done the last two weeks. Starting with, I hired a day of wedding planner. Let me start by saying that we were not at all planning on working this into the budget. It just felt like the money could be better spent somewhere else. But, one thing has become clear to me over the last month…there is a lot to do on the day of a wedding! There’s figuring out the wedding day timeline, welcoming and coordinating all the vendors to the venue, DECORATING the venue, running the ceremony, making sure the reception runs smoothly, making sure final payments make it to the vendors, and trouble shooting, not to mention a dozen other things I’m sure I haven’t even thought of. And what became clear to the two of us is that not only will neither of us have time the day of to do any of this, we actually don’t want to do any of this. We just want to enjoy the day. So we’ve hired someone to do all the nitty gritty work for us. Totally worth the money in my opinion!

Secondly, I hired a hair and makeup person. I mean, we’re gonna be looking at these photos for a really long time, so I should probably make an effort to look good 🙂

Also, we arranged for some fun reception things for all you guests to do. Yay for fun!

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